# Santa Barabara CA Beach Tar-natural Seeps? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 4, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santa-barabara-ca-beach-tar-natural-seeps/668008 "2013-09-04T17:31:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santa-barabara-ca-beach-tar-natural-seeps/668008/1 "2013-09-04T17:31:36Z")
A family friend just got back from vacation in CA. She was disappointed with the beaches in Santa Barbara-the beaches were all fouled with tar-she stepped in some, and ruined a new pair of shoes. My question: is this tar from natural oil seeps? I know that the state banned new oil wells in the Santa Barbara Channel (there was a major blowout/oil spill there in the 1960s. So is this tar on the beaches natural, or are the existing wells leaking? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santa-barabara-ca-beach-tar-natural-seeps/668008/2 "2013-09-04T17:51:53Z")
It’s natural. Anecdotally (I wasn’t here then), the tar on the beaches was much _worse_ before the oil wells went in. The oil wells have gotten at a lot of the oil near the surface, which leaves less to seep out and wind up on beaches. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santa-barabara-ca-beach-tar-natural-seeps/668008/3 "2013-09-04T18:02:02Z")
They’re all over the Gulf too; going to the beach and getting tar on your feet was pretty much par for the course as a kid growing up in Texas. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santa-barabara-ca-beach-tar-natural-seeps/668008/4 "2013-09-04T18:35:45Z")
In fact, the Santa Barbara Channel has the world’s largest natural oil seep, according to wiki: > **[Petroleum seep | California seeps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_seep#California_seeps)** > > California has several hundred naturally occurring seeps, found in 28 counties across the state. Much of the petroleum discovered in California during the 19th century was from observations of seeps. The world's largest natural oil seepage is Coal Oil Point in the Santa Barbara Channel, California. Three of the better known tar seep locations in California are McKittrick Tar Pits, Carpinteria Tar Pits and the La Brea Tar Pits. > At Kern River Oil Field, there are no currently active seeps. However... I grew up in Titusville, PA, which bills itself as “Birthplace of the oil industry”. [Drake Well](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Well) was drilled along the banks of Oil Creek, which was so named for a reason. There’s oil seeps around the Bay Area, too, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. They tried drilling there based on them around Purissima. Didn’t get much, though, and eventually moved south . ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santa-barabara-ca-beach-tar-natural-seeps/668008/5 "2013-09-04T18:48:33Z")
I spent some time in [Summerland, CA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerland,_California), which was the home of the worlds first offshore oil rig. Yes, there was always some tar on the beach - not sure how much was from natural seeps, or from old, uncapped wells. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Blaylock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_blaylock/32/3235_2.png) [@Bob\_Blaylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Blaylock)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santa-barabara-ca-beach-tar-natural-seeps/668008/6 "2013-09-04T22:03:57Z")
I grew up in Santa Barbara. Yes, the tar on the beaches is from natural seeps. Long before Europeans ever found the place, the Chumash indians used to use that tar to seal their canoes. There’s a place along the coast, not very far away, called “Coal Oil Point”, so named because the earliest sailors that explored the area knew to recognize that area, even at night, from the smell of the oil. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/santa-barabara-ca-beach-tar-natural-seeps/668008/7 "2013-09-05T15:42:19Z")
BTW, estimates of how much oil is being released by the Coal Oil Point seep (the one which is claimed to be the world’s largest) vary, but generally seem to run about 100 - 200 barrels/day. For comparison purposes, that’s miniscule compared to the rate for some major oil spill disasters (Deepwater Horizon estimates are on the order of 5 million barrels in about 90 days, and the Exxon Valdez leaked 270,000 barrels). Well production varies greatly, but there are many wells being operated at less than that - 10 barrels/day is a figure often used for a so-called “stripper” well at the end of its useful life. And that seep’s presumably been doing this for centuries.